The University of St Louis is putting sensors in garbage and recycling bins around the City of St Louis. The geospatial sensors will allows neighbourhoods to track recycling and solid waste.

The geospatial sensor has been developed by Orhun Aydin, Ph.D., assistant professor in Earth and Atmospheric Science at the University’s School for Science and Engineering. His team has now received a $149,791 planning grant from the National Science Foundation. It follows a pilot conducted at Saint Louis University which allowed researchers to see when and where people disposed of their waste and recyclables.

Aydin said he was inspired to work on fixing environmental issues at the source after spending years in industry working on islands of plastics in the oceans.

“I wasn’t aware of the scale until then. I realized the solution can’t be fixing the islands of waste – we had to cut things off at the tap,” Aydin said. “I want to fix the problem in the city before it reaches the natural environment.”

Solid waste management and recycling is a significant challenge for communities, as only a small fraction of the recyclables collected are recycled. Mismanaged solid waste is routed to landfills and incinerators, most of which are now built in low-income communities and communities of colour. 

The project is developing an IoT network to connect people and communities to the fate of their waste by forming data-driven links between citizens, local government, waste service contractors, and policymakers. 

The sensors use chips with IoT infrastructure built in the AI-CHESS (Artificial Intelligence for Coupled Human Environment System Analysis for Sustainability) Lab at SLU. They will be embedded into alley-based waste and recycling bins in multiple neighbourhoods around 66 square miles of St. Louis. 

“We are starting with 100,” Aydin said. “I hope to get to 10,000 in the next few years and working with the community, the city, and local partners to get there.” 

In addition to the sensor network, the project will prototype AI models for optimizing city-wide recycling operations and for quantifying the impact of various recycling outreach on recycling in recycling and waste reduction behaviour change.

The sensors will characterize items in the waste bins to determine what is being thrown in which bin and when. The low-cost sensors developed in Aydin’s lab are sensitive enough to determine the chemical composition of incoming waste. The sensors also measure the bacterial activity inside waste bins, which the team is using to assess food degradation to guide future food waste reduction. 

The research team is partnering with EarthDay 365, a non-profit whose goal is a more equitable and environmentally sustainable St. Louis region, to design educational programming based on its findings.

“We are partnering with EarthDay 365 on community outreach and working with local residents,” Aydin said. “We will be able to determine what types of outreaches work best in which neighborhoods. Our goal is to keep the recycling rate high without overburdening people.” 

The first round of sensors is being placed around several locations in the city, from areas with high recycling rates to areas regularly targeted for illegal dumping.

Aydin said he is excited to work with the city, noting the partnership will also allow the city to see where the waste bins are and what is in them to potentially optimize routes for allocating limited resources effectively.

“This data, from a $5 device, will allow us to see things we couldn’t see before,” he said. “I’m excited about the digital transformation that this IoT network will bring and problem-solving that can come from working together with the city and local community.”

The NSF planning grant will allow Aydin to hone the sensors’ design parameters, identify data gaps that impact waste management operations, and delineate citizens’ expectations of recycling service transparency and form partnerships.